It is said by men far wiser than me that one is alive as long as there is someone on Earth to remember that person.

Big Mort is very much alive, and it’s not just through me.

This rainy day I am behind my computer screen, plotting out my new story. My wife is watching the men’s finals of the Australian Open. It is Medvedev vs. Sinner. We think they’re both spectacular. I sort of like Daniil Medvedev a bit better, because he projects a certain Russian world-weariness that speaks to me. My bloodline runs through the Pale of Settlement, via Russia, Poland, Lithuania, and Romania.

As I write, I hear a scream from the living room. It’s from my five-foot one and three-quarter inch waif of a wife. She bellows: “gahd…DAMMIT!!!!”

After the better part of half a century together, she’s heard my reaction to strikeouts, dropped passes, missed free throws, blown calls. That is: “gahd-DAMMIT!!!”

See, the thing is, I got it from my father. Big Mort. Conerly throws an interception? “Gahd-DAMMIT!!!” He’d pound his chair, pace in front of the TV, and scream. My mom would feel his forehead. He’d be burning up. One time, the thermometer read 102.3 degrees during a Giants – Browns game.

So that’s where I got the “gahd-DAMMIT!!!”

And now, my tiny wife does the “gahd-DAMMIT!!!”

So in some small way, my emotionally distant, PTSD-ridden, sometimes violent father is still alive, now through the mouth of my wife, who was hardly a fan of Big Mort.

There’s a lot of screaming in the living room right now. Sinner just won in five sets. Medvedev is denied again.

“Gahd-DAMMIT!!!”

See you again soon, Dad.